Student Profile
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Leading by listening: Marianas Fernandez’s journey to becoming a student leader
UCSC student Marianas Fernandez excels in academics, activism, and athletics, earning recognition and awards for her leadership and contributions.
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UCSC student and two time scholarship recipient shares her transformative experiences
Lizeth Peña Sanchez (’24, education, democracy, and justice, Latin American and Latino studies, and sociology) received scholarships from The Institute for Social Transformation’s Transforming Futures and Building Belonging Programs. She shares how those experiences prepared her for her future goals.
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Five student teams embark on tech for social good projects
Five student teams will take on tech for social good projects with funding from the UCSC CITRIS and the Banatao Institute and the UCSC Institute for Social Transformation.
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UCSC researchers win big at American Sociological Association annual meeting
Professor emeritus Craig Reinarman was honored with the 2022 Senior Scholar Award by the ASA’s Drugs and Society Section, and Ph.D. student Michelle Gomez Parra received the Sociology of Sexualities Section’s Martin P. Levine Memorial Dissertation Fellowship. Politics Professors Eleonora Pasotti and Mark Massoud were celebrated for book awards.
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Sociology doctoral candidate wins national fellowship for research on travel programs that teach youth about the African diaspora
Theresa Hice-Fromille was one of five top scholars selected nationwide for the American Sociological Association’s 2022-2023 Minority Fellowship program. Funding from this and other recent awards will support her dissertation research on travel abroad programs led by Black women that teach youth about the African diaspora.
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A cup of kindness
UC Santa Cruz student Tommy Alejandrez was living on the streets when he met former NFL player Zack Follett on a busy corner in Fresno. The meeting—over a cup of coffee—sparked a friendship that would change both of their lives.
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Doctoral candidate’s award-winning research documents experiences of Latina girls growing up in rural California
UC Santa Cruz graduate student Roxanna Villalobos recently won a national dissertation scholarship award from Sociologists for Women in Society that will support her research with Latina girls in rural California.
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Doctoral student wins Ford Foundation fellowship for work on gender, race, and policing
Uriel Serrano recently won a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship to support his research on how gender ideologies are formed in relation to carceral violence.
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Norberto Garcia
As Norberto (Norbit) Garcia interviewed 18 families about their experiences for his senior thesis, he was reminded of why he chose sociology as a major—the realization that he wanted to help communities that are underrepresented and motivate students like him to go to college.
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Norris Center aims to inspire naturalists across campus
Jessica Correa has loved insects since she was a little girl. Today she is an instructor with the Bird School Project. The Norris Center for Natural History gave her the support that launched her career in environmental education.
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Sociology PhD candidate named UC Free Speech Fellow
Saugher Nojan, a PhD candidate in sociology, has been selected as a 2019-20 fellow of the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.
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Blum Scholars present preliminary results of community-based research
Four graduate students discussed their research on jail health care, Latina resistance, Central Valley youth, and feminism in the farmlands.